Jeff Vrabel: It’s not easy being nerdy

Monday

Mar 24, 2008 at 12:01 AMMar 24, 2008 at 8:05 PM

Most people would agree that I am something of a nerd. For whatever reason, I am drawn to stories about things happening in space, largely because most of the things happening on Earth involve missing children or war or Amy Winehouse.

Jeff Vrabel

Most people would agree that I am something of a nerd. Most people would agree about that, because rarely has a fact made so regularly, aggressively apparent. Gravity is not proven as much as my relative nerdness; there's more debate about the Earth's revolving around the sun.

At this point in the column I would normally make an extremely hilarious aside about the sheer level of brain-skill I possess regarding "Star Wars" and the discography of "Weird Al" Yankovic, but it occurs to me that I can probably just make those references and be done with it.

But being a nerd is not as easy as people think; it's not just all fun and role-playing games. No, it requires you to keep up with a number of things, such as at least two fantasy sports leagues at all times, everything Steve Jobs is thinking and, of course, anything important that might be happening in space.

On the plus side, most of us have RSS readers that shoot stories and Google news alerts about these things to our smart phones, so it's not like we have to spend a lot of time away from the Wii to do this. (Note to all non-nerds: Many important things happen in space, almost every day, although most of them are insignificant to you. So don't sweat it. But if we hear of a killer asteroid on its way here, we'll just text you).

Nerds have a fascination with space, and not always the weird "Star Trek"/We Are Not Alone sort of way, although, to be fair, it's mostly in that way.

Lest you think that's some sort of jock-borne running gag or an unfair stereotype, allow me to assure you that the reigning IT kingpin at my office regularly holds debates about the level of awesomeness of "Deep Space Nine" versus the degree of fantasticness of "The Next Generation" with the guy in the cubicle next to me.

If you could somehow capture and control the aggregate dork power of the resultant debate, I'm pretty sure we could eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. Frankly, a minute ago I was feeling pretty nerdy, but the more I think about these guys, I kinda think now I'm skewing jock.

Anyway, for whatever reason, I am drawn to stories about things happening in space, largely because most of the things happening on Earth involve missing children or war or Amy Winehouse. When I hear that NASA thinks there may be salt on Mars, I immediately put down my waffle and go check it out.

Indeed, according to Scientists, their probe droids and the midichlorians, the Mars Odyssey craft recently uncovered evidence that Mars' Southern hemisphere is covered with a chloride mineral that may or may not be simple regular table salt.

This is fantastic news, mostly because it means you can theoretically have a margarita on another planet in the reasonably near future. It also means I can use the phrase "chloride mineral" in a quote-fingers professional setting, meaning that my ninth-grade Earth science class is now not entirely useless.

The salt has been there for a while: Scientists think it was put there about four billion years ago, so it's probably not very good for cooking. But here's the crazy thing about salt: Aside from being apparently the only food ingredient that Arby's knows about, it has many fantastic side properties.

It's a really good preservation material, meaning that scientists can theoretically use it to find places where life once might have existed in the past, such as in several long dried-up Martian lake areas, or in Nancy Grace's brain. So it could very well turn out that the question of extra-terrestrial life will be partially answered by simple, delicious table salt. At least, that's the current theory. Take it with a grain of, um, something.

Jeff Vrabel is a freelance writer who has never seen a single episode of "Deep Space Nine." He can be reached at www.jeffvrabel.com.

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